Different Hours

The random musings of the owner of a very very small (I mean smaller than what you're thinking...okay a little bigger) Messenger Company

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Here's a good question that a gentleman in Berkeley has been trying to get journalistst to ask Bush and Kerry, or any politician of a national stature for that matter:

Will you agree never to accept any personal profits flowing from any military action you authorize or promote?

So simple and so telling. It cuts right to the point doesn't it?

I've got a nasty little head cold at the moment. Sucks the creativity right out of me. There's a good article in the New Yorker about Gavin Newsom the current SF mayor. I must say that after a very divisive election that pitted the wealthy Newsom against young liberal Mission dweller Matt Gonzalez, I've been presently surprised by Newsom. If he's the future of the Dems then perhaps I've got some hope.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

This chickie-poo is very funny. DC folk may already know her since that's where she's based, but you gotta love a wise ass woman who likes to have a drink or two: www.wonkette.com

Using a little bit of early morning quiet to write and read the paper. Soon all hell will break loose and I get to spend the day alone in the office, answering phones, dispatching, and being frustrated. Did I mention that I have a cold and a sore throat? Let me introduce myself, I am Senor Whiner. Or you can refer to my as El Grande Whinador or El Jefe de los Whinadores. Please no email about my spanglish. It's a joke.

If you haven't taken my advice at listened to Go-Team, then do yourself a favor and go to the www.memphis-industries.com site and check 'em out. One day they'll tour the US and it will be all kinds of fun.

Jetset has been busy as a beaver in the redwoods lately. It's been a very good September, which is what I would expect coming off a typically mellow summer. It's a very standard delivery pattern. Slow summer months followed by a major ramp up in the first 2 1/2 months of fall (Sept., Oct. 2 weeks of Nov.) as companies prepare for the holidays. Things mellow around Thanksgiving, pick up again until Xmas and then January is hit or miss. I wonder to what extent work will be affected by the presidential race. During the Gore/Bush fiasco, as the country waited with bated breath for Bush to ulimately steal the election through a partisan judiciary (this after employing overtly racist gerrymandering tactics in Florida) work was absolutely dead. Next, of course, came the dot com fallout and a general country wide malaise/depression that is only now starting to lift. But in its wake resides a bitterly divided country left in emotional shambles after 4 years (more really when you consider the damage that Gingrich did) of divisive politics by Heir Bush in which he wedged enough issues into the middle of the country that you now have to charter a car ferry 3 months in advance if you want to drive from one coast to the other.

Oh, and this just in from our current administration: despite the worst hurricane season on record, the documented melting of every major glacial field on the planet, the noted sinking of a number of islands in Micronesia, drought, unseasonable heat in Europe, the coldest winter on record in Europe, the jury is still out on global warming. Check back in 10 to 15 years, it should be too late to do anything by then.

It also seems that (despite conservative auto-makers, no guidance from the administration {whatever did happen to all that R&D money for fuel cells}) alternative fuel vehicles are becoming commonplace enough that in 2005 american auto makers will release 3 hybrid SUV's. Unfucking believable. American automakers pulled kicking and screaming to a technology that the Japanese auto-makers wisely began investing in years and years ago. So basically the Prius, the Honda Civic Hybrid are so commonplace now that no one bats an eye at the idea of a hybrid vehicle, that must mean it's safe for the US auto-makers to come out from under their rocks and build some cars.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

I've been thinking about starting a separate music blog for awhile now. I've added some new links over to the side there under MUSIC check out the flux blog and music for robots. I've gotta credit those guys with turning me on to some great music. There's a band called Go Team out there that makes me feel like I'm 17 again and that's alot from a really cynical jaded music critic. Seriously I like alot of stuff and love very little now adays. I keep waiting for something to grab me that way music did when I was in high school and college. I don't think it's that there isn't good music out there, but that it's harder to investment both the emotional and actual time into a band as we get older. Anyway there's a band called Go Team on a small label called Memphis Industries and it makes me giggle like a little school girl. There's indie rock, Jackson 5, Go-Go (yes go-go my DC brethren), 60's harmonies, silly piano and an palpable love of music coming out of these guys. Check out the Memphis Industries site. Why are the british so much better than us at having fun when it comes to music? I don't completely believe that statement but it sounded good saying it.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Time for the weekly blogging. I've been a bit overwhelmed with work lately, one of my partners left to go out of town for a week on pretty last minute notice so I've had to work longer hours than I'd like. My partner's met a very wealthy woman. I'm glad for him but I hope these last minute jets to england aren't going to be de rigeur. As far as the financial health of the company goes it was certainly a smart move to let our only office employee go, but it sure does put more stress on the office and me. Samantha seems to be liking kindergarten very much, though the after care and before care seems to be a little lacking and this cause for some consternation as neither Tami or myself feels very good about dropping Sam off there. The main problem is the amount of kids that utilize the after care, there is little attention paid to any kind of sensible student to caregiver ratio. But the most troubling part of the situation is how many "big" kids there are. We're just not comfortable having Sam in situation where there are many 2 kindergarteners on some days and like 20 3rd to 6th graders. I think it's intimidating and stressful for her.

My league basketball team is 3-0 which is nice but there have been so many midweek games thus far that it's been a little stressful getting everything scheduled out. Got a game tonight in fact, but after this it's Sundays from here on out.

Was working under the house the other day cleaning stuff out and smacked my head on a beam. The gash actually compliments the shiner that I got in my last basketball game, now it looks more like I've been in bar fight though I like to tell people that Tami beat me up because I know she'd probably like to.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

You know you've thought about it. We all have. I mean who wouldn't want to dress up like a superhero and completely mess up traffic for a couple of hours. I, however, would probable lobby for something a bit more esoteric than Batman. I'm thinking Green Lantern or Hawkman, someone that everybody kind of looks at you and goes what's he supposed to be and then BAM you hit 'em with Lantern laser or a grimly muttered, "I'm Hawkman dammit". I figure if you're going to be crazy, you may as well go all out.

Monday, September 13, 2004

I've been writing alot more lately. I don't know if it has to do with all the music review writing I've been doing, but the simply task of putting words to paper has been really pleasurable as of late. I checked a book out on writing or freeing the creative spirit. Not the kind of stuff I usually go in for. I think I have an automated reaction of distaste to anything vaguely new age. There's something artificial or escapist about it. But I was proven very wrong with this book. It's by a woman who's been teaching workshops forever all around the country. She writes with a very "new agey, get in touch with your inner self" type of voice, but once I got past that I found her describing my problems with writing to a "T": procrastination, self defeat, convincing yourself that no one wants to read what you have to say before writing anything down, and, worst of all, constant self-editing. I could identify with everything that she. She convinced me that more often than not you've got to simply write. Not since down saying I'm going to write a poem or a story with "X" theme and characters. But simply write about anything for as long as you can everyday. Just let it spill out on the paper, don't edit and don't try to be clever. Just let go. I've been It's really freeing and produces at least one gem in the sea of mush that emerges.

Here are some bands that are worth listening to with recent albums out:

The Fire Theft
The Shins
The New Pornographers
A.C. Newman
The Faint (I think the album "Wet from Birth" which comes out tomorrow, may make these guys huge)

I recently finished a very literary book by Annie Proulx which was great, but now I'm into some really trashy sci-fi fantasy stuff. I think it goes back to being 12 years old and reading the Lord of the Rings, but I absolutely love a richly, well imagined universe.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

What a fun labor day weekend. Once again the family headed up to Mariposa County for the world famous Mariposa County fair. It's not really world famous but is such a classic representation of a small rural county fair. It's the event that the county waits for the whole summer. It's full of livestock, weird carnie folk, games of chance, country music, and way too much beer. Samantha absolutely loves it. She's in hog heaven on the rides, loves the terrible food, and could toss ping pong balls at small glass bowls until she was blue in the face. It's been really neat to see her grow steadily more confident at the fair. This is her 3rd year and when we started going she wouldn't even consider going on one of the rides. Now she loves it all, has made little friends with the children of her grandparents friends and just seems so in her element there. It's not that she's a rural kid, it's just that she's grown used to the rural environment that her grandparents live in and slides into the environment very easily. It's the whole adaptability of kids thing I guess. But it's not just her that loves the fair. I must say that I look forward to it every year. I don't want to call it wholesome just because there's pigs and a demolition derby and lots of cowboy hats, but there is something oddly innocent about it. People know one another, enter their pictures, crafts, plants, in the contests, cheer each other on, chat with you even if they don't know you. You're guard is down and I like that. Of course there's also the bald guy with a huge cross tattooed across his chest who has a wandering eye and (due to my careful observation of this nut) absolutely no social skills who has, none the less, managed to find a mate in an obsese, semi-literate alcoholic named Lulu. There are also absolutely no minorities. None. Not even a stray latino. It's a lily white existence and I felt a need to shelter my daughter from alot of the small mindedness. But for the most part the people have good (if sometimes misguided) hearts.

I also had the chance to ride up near Bass Lake. I found a couple of trails in the area through www.mtbr.com (a good resource actually) and Tami and our friend Jeff took a chance on a ride up Goat Mountain Trail. I have to tell you that it was one of the best rides I've been on in awhile. 3/4 of the climb up (about 1300 feet of gain) was on very tight single track. Once away from the main road around the lake we saw no one else. There was a signifigant stretch of fire road as I climbed up to the Goat Mountain observation tower. It was a tough climb mostly because of the heat. I enjoyed a magnificent 360 degree view in which I could see Bass Lake and Yosemite as well as most of the surrounding Stanislaus National Forest. But the really fun part was yet to come. The descent on Goat Mountain Trail was just too much fun. about 4 miles of tight, wooded challenging singletrack. I must say the Retrotec and I rocked it. Once again didn't see another soul on the whole descent. A good mix of tough rocky technical descent, smooth banked loamy trail on which you could really let go without worrying about running into another person. It was riding unlike the bay area, though I imagine it was what mountain biking on Mt. Tam would've been like 30 years ago. Good stuff.